Chapter Three

Dr. Shizumura struck me as a no nonsense sort of woman, walking with a long and confident stride, I had to make many hasty steps, in fact it would be fair to say that I practically scurried to keep up with her. She looked straight ahead and if it weren’t for the fact that she was talking to me I’d have thought I was forgotten completely.

“You’re on the planet of Manami, and the city of Johatsu, situated in the country of Kaminaru. We’re ruled by the Tomaru royal family, and situated on the southeastern coast of the continent. Your slate, which we’re going to get you, is how you’ll do all of your transactions, track your progress, skills, identify yourself, and so on.”

“This is a lot to take in.” I interrupted her ‘lecture’ and she finally at least looked in my direction.

“You’re in another world. That’s to be expected, isn’t it?” She looked me up and down again as if she were questioning an appraisal of her own. It was a polite way of asking, ‘are you stupid?’

I also got the feeling that the only reason she was being this polite was because she owed me a life debt.

“Maybe so, but it’s still a lot. One minute I’m going back to my home, now I don’t even have one.” I insisted, and she sighed, pushing up the glasses against her face again.

“Right. Right. Maybe it is. Okay, so then, the good news is, we have a way to help you with that.” She said, and I cocked my head.

“Yes. I’ll show you how to use your slate, and load a program on here that will help you understand how this world works. Just ignore the part about being the special chosen hero.” She said, and I frowned.

“Right, because I’m not. I’m just the guy… girl who saved your collective tails.” I answered. It was hard not to be a little bit snippy. But I also made a mental note to get used to being a girl now.

That seemed to have an effect on her. “A poor choice of words on my part.” She replied, and was at least chastened enough to fall mute for just a little while.

When she spoke again we’d gone down two flights of stairs in a lone sterile hall, already the differences between my world and this one were becoming apparent in little things. Back home, offices had silly motivational posters hanging in even intervals on the walls. Here, the doors had the space between them broken up only by more wall. No posters, not even any potted plants.

It was all very sterile. So drab was it that I was glad when she started talking again. And when she spoke, she started as if she’d never stopped. “Since we don’t have a spot for you, you’ll sort of have to make your own way, but we may be able to give you some token jobs to help you get by until the machine is fixed. Then, if you like we can try to send you back home. Although-” She stopped in her tracks right outside of a thick metal door and I stopped one pace behind her.

“If you don’t mind my saying, you don’t seem to have a reason to go home, not much going on from what you said, so why not stay here? It’s not a bad world, mostly. You might like it more.” She suggested, and I mentally winced at her blunt assessment.

“I’d still like to have the choice.” I said, and she shrugged, her tail swishing a little.

“Have it your way. Come on in, this is the office where the occasional summoned ‘person’ can get registered for citizenship, get their slate, and file all their paperwork. You’re lucky, this didn’t exist until a few years ago, before that, new people would have to go all over the city, now we have a single office for everything in the same building. It’s more efficient this way.” Dr. Shizumura said and after she put her hand on a flat panel on the door, five long vertical lines formed in the door, and then the various divisions rose up into the ceiling like a portcullis.

The door opened to reveal a perfectly ordinary looking wooden desk that went from one wall to the next, each space divided by head high walls, and a dogman with graying fur sitting down in front of me. His desk was clean except for a large feather quill, an inkwell, some papers, and a set of flat stones a little larger than my hand with fingers spread open.

“A new hero? Do I need to up my insurance?” The dogman asked, he looked more than a little bit worried, if wide eyes were any indication. His graying fur and floppy long ears were actually kind of cute, in the way old dogs typically work, but he had very human arms and hands.

‘This is going to take some getting used to.’ I realized.

“No. No, nothing like that.” She clarified to him, and the dogman exhaled with relief.

‘This person is absurdly blunt.’ I thought, but went along with her.

“But this is a special exception, still a summon, so you can take care of them like you usually do.” She said and then stepped out of my way and said to me…

“You just give them the information they ask for, and I’ll brief you along the way.” She said, and the dogman took what appeared to be a chalk white piece of stone off of a stack beside his right hand and laid it out in front of me.

“Place your hand on this and answer the questions as I ask them.” He said, and when my hand was flat on the surface he asked for my information.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Name? Purpose of summon? Special skills? Race? Sex? Age? Ambition?”

As he asked these questions, they began to appear in list form above my hand, the letters shaped in a dim purple light.

“Aiko Tsuniki. Janitor and tinker. Tinkering and creative builds. Kitsune. Female. Twenty-three.” Those were easy enough to answer, but I was stumped at the last one.

I cocked my head. “You have to pick ‘something’ otherwise it can’t provide any guidance or support.”

“I don’t know… launch a ship into space!” I plucked the idea out of the air, and they looked at me dumbfounded, both of them.

“That’s… dangerous. That’s absurd. You can’t do that…” The dogman shook his head.

“Oh, can I change it?” I asked, and Dr. Shizumura quickly agreed.

“Absolutely.”

“Um, to build awesome things!” I answered, and one by one the answers I gave appeared in place of the questions.

The letters then ‘retracted’ through my palm and embedded themselves on the slate, then faded away.

“Now go from your palm to your thumb.” The dogman instructed me, and I placed my thumb on the slate.

“Create Universal account.” He said and placed his thumb on the top center of the slate.

“All money is accounted for on that.” The Dr. said, pointing down at my slate. “Transfers between individuals and groups are instant, and done in the universal currency called ‘Creds’. If you do need to see someone for a ‘special use’ transaction, you can find something called a ‘Credxchange’ for a third party certification. But you’ll probably never need that.”

I realized that their ‘credxchange’ was a sort of a blend between a bank and an escrow service.

“Guild halls also offer this service, but only to members.” She was probably going to say more, but the familiar phrase had me yank my head up from where I was looking, directly to her.

“Like, adventurer’s guilds?!” I piped up and all my tails began to go wild behind me, creating quite a breeze, as the air came back and blew the feather quill out of the inkwell and scattered the papers behind him.

“Watch it!” The dogman shouted and bent down to pick up the quill and grumbling, snatched up the papers as they drifted toward the floor.

“Sorry!” I exclaimed and stopped the spontaneous wagging.

“Yes. Like an adventurer’s guild.” She said, “Guilds are how we handle almost everything. There are guilds for finance and construction, mining and metalworking, everything. If you want to work, you must join a guild at least as a novice entry. After that?” She shrugged, “They all have their own ranking systems.”

“I see.” I said, and for once, I did. This much made sense to me, it was a real relief to find that much.

“If that’s what you’d like to do-” she said and looked at the still grumbling dogman, who nodded at her.

“She’s done here.” He said, then looked at me, “If you lose that slate, there’s a considerable fine, and if you can’t pay it, you’ll have to spend a lot of time in public works teams to cover the fine.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. But what if it breaks?” I asked.

He let out a barking laugh as he straightened up with the last of his papers in hand. “If you find something that can break it, we’ll replace it at no charge as long as it wasn’t done on purpose. You’d pretty much have to blow it up with a boomshell to risk destroying it.”

“A boomshell?” I asked.

“A special shell fired from the heavy magisteamechs.” She explained, and I had to think that one over.

“Mechs?!” I exclaimed and my tails started going nuts again. “You have mechsuits here?!” I shouted with glee, and a bunch of heads popped up over the dividers to see the commotion.

The papers and quills flew off the desk again. “Damn it! Get her out of here before she causes a tornado!” The dogman shouted and got back up from his seat to pick things up again.

Dr. Shizumura tapped the panel on the door and said, “Yes, we do.”

As soon as the door closed behind us she drew a slate out of her pocket and began to tap on it. “If you need to know where something is, just tap on it and ask. If they’re registered with the local government, you’ll find it. It can also direct you to ‘ambition points’ if your magic skill is high enough, but that is not something you can use every hour. You’ll only be able to use it once a day because ‘that’ will draw on the mana of your own body. If you need to pay somebody, input the total like this,” she turned the slate around so I could see it, then tapped a few numbers, “then touch your slate to the person’s own. The money comes out of your account, and goes into theirs.” She then touched her slate to mine, and both our screens briefly flashed white.

“There. That’s one hundred and fifty thousand creds.” She said, and I looked at the total on the screen.

“Is that a lot?” I asked and scratched my head. It sounded like a lot, but for all I knew, that was lunch.

“If you were to stay at a middle quality inn, you would spend roughly one thousand creds in roughly fifteen days. One meal would be perhaps ten creds if you ate something cheap and filling. To buy a small house, you would spend about a third of that if you lived in a lower class or country area. Does that help?” She asked. It did. Her explanation was pretty damn good, I had to admit that.

“It does, so this is enough for me to live for what, a few years without working?” I asked.

“If you’re careful.” She acknowledged as her tail swished behind her, I gathered she didn’t like the way I asked that.

“So, is that everything?” I asked.

“For now. My contact information was included in that as evidence of the transaction, and now I also have yours. You can message people through your slate as long as you are willing to spend a little of your mana to do it. Reach out to me if you need anything. If I can find some work for you, or my colleagues can, I will notify you. If you have specific questions, ask your slate, chances are it can answer. If it can’t, seek a government information office in any city, great or small.”

“Then, thank you.” I said, and she blinked in surprise when I said it.

“Slate. Show me the way to the Adventurer’s Guild.” I said, and a little map began to form.

“Really?” She asked.

“Yes. I may not be the chosen one, but I’ve already made my choice!” And with that, I walked away.